Walking from the devastated palace to the Holy Gate of the True God, we saw hundreds of dead sprawled in the dusty streets. Women were almost as numerous as men among the still forms at which the ubiquitous pariah dogs sniffed warily. Equal in the rights and duties of life, males and females had been equally in peril and were wholly equal in death.
We are now safely ensconced by courtesy of our protector, the senior official, in a tower room of the South Gate. We shall see what develops, since we are free to walk about the city, though our friend advises great caution. I cannot, however, imagine what further atrocities can yet be perpetrated. With the death of the usurper, the East King, at the hands of those ferocious “tigers,” the West King and the Prince of Yen, the coup d’état appears crushed. Since the Taiping Emperor is secure on his throne, true peace should now return to the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace. David, however, derides my optimism. Once Chinese begin killing each other, he warns, they will not stop until a strong hand reimposes order.
David closed the journal and smiled wryly at his companion.
“Please don’t say it, Davy,” Gabriel muttered. “You were right, and I was dead wrong. But, considering what we knew that night, no one could expect …”
“All right, Gabe, I didn’t know there’d be more killing. I only remembered what’s happened every other time an emperor’s soldiers turned on each other. You’ve heard enough, I suppose.”
“Let’s have the last bit. Might as well hear the whole sad story.”
“Gabe, I’ve had enough. Read it yourself.”
4th September 1856, a deceptively gentle twilight [Gabriel stubbornly read aloud]. The previous entry in this journal appalled the narrator. As he makes this entry, he is revolted equally by the suave duplicity and the raw brutality of the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace. We were summoned just before dawn, along with large numbers of the populace of the Holy City, to an astonishing spectacle. Having witnessed the deeds of the loyal supporters of the Taiping Emperor, I still find it virtually impossible to believe they actually occurred.
The West King and the Prince of Yen grossly exceeded their orders, slaughtering thousands despite resistance that destroyed at least a thousand of their own followers. The conspiracy, they contended, was so deep-rooted that the Taiping monarch would be secure only when all adherents of the slain usurper were also slain. The two “tigers” cited the maxim: “Weeds cannot simply be cut, but must be pulled up by the roots.” Throughout the sanguinary second day of September 1856, they dispatched their soldiers into every quarter of the city to massacre all men and women suspected of collusion with the East King. When that day closed, the Heavenly Capital had been scythed by mass carnage.
The Taiping Emperor ordered their criminal insubordination punished. A decree of September 3rd condemned both the West King and the Prince of Yen to the bastinado, that is, whipping on their naked soles. The Taiping monarch summoned more than five thousand spectators to his Great Brilliant Palace to witness his even-handed justice, among them many adherents of the slain usurper. With our protector, the senior official, David and I were seated close to the throne within the steel thicket of the Heavenly King’s bodyguard at the far end of the courtyard.
The two princes I had first seen through the draperies presented themselves for punishment. The pudgy West King and the younger Prince of Yen bowed contritely to their sovereign and submissively lay down on low benches, their feet bared to the springy canes of the executioners. They writhed each time those switches struck and moaned piteously. The princes who had preserved their sovereign from assassination were thus not only tortured but grossly humiliated.
Thousands in the halls flanking the courtyard relished that degradation. They chatted, laughed, and called out to the executioners to strike harder, until the Taiping monarch’s bodyguard locked the doors of the halls. The two princes sprang nimbly to their feet, showing no sign of injury, and their soldiers charged into the unarmed spectators in the halls. Though I have seen much killing in China, I find it almost impossible to describe the terror of the helpless men and women as sabers, battle axes, and spears cut them down. I shall always remember a gleaming sword hewing at the hands of a slender woman raised in supplication. The stench of blood and excrement was nauseating. The shrieks of the dying mingled with the throbbing of my own blood in my ears.
The Heavenly King, the supreme ruler of the insurgent empire, had meekly concurred in the “tigers’” plan to exterminate all the dissidents. He sat stolidly on his throne, his heavy features expressionless as the slaughter proceeded. Though David insists the Taiping Emperor visibly suffered while his followers slew each other, I discerned no more than the mild interest of a spectator at a cricket fight.
We were taken back to the tower room of the Gate of the True God, where we have since been confined. That imprisonment is, our friend the senior officials says, solely for our own protection. I must believe him, since he has candidly told us of the subsequent scenes of the dark drama that still continues on this fourth day of October.
The surviving followers of the would-be usurper, the East King, barricaded themselves in a few blocks of the Holy City. Led by able officers, they stoutly resisted the unremitting assaults of the troops of the West King and the Prince of Yen. Further tens of thousands were slain in the fratricidal strife that raged for two weeks. All died with affirmations of loyalty to the Heavenly King and reverence for the One True God on their lips.
In mid-September hopes of ending the strife rose with the return of the Assistant King, the third of the “tigers sent away from the mountain.” Arriving with a small bodyguard withdrawn from his siege of Wuchang, five hundred miles away, he remonstrated with the two fierce tigers. Further slaughter, he warned, would result in the disintegration of the Heavenly Kingdom, since the Imps would seize the opportunity presented by internal strife to attack the Heavenly Capital in force.
The West King coldly replied that the new arrival spoke like a supporter of the usurper. Realizing that his head was also in peril, the Assistant King withdrew with apologies for his presumption and slipped out of the Holy City after having stayed only a few hours.
On his return journey to Wuchang a messenger from the Taiping monarch overtook him. The Assistant King learned with grief that his fears had been justified. During the night after his departure, a strong force under the two “fierce tigers” had surrounded his palace. When the assailants found their prey flown, they revenged themselves on his family and followers. After slaughtering his young wife and his son, they killed his concubines and every male or female guard of his palace. The bereaved prince swore a blood oath to return with a great force and “sweep away all the evildoers who surround the sovereign.”
There matters stand. The fate of the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace is sealed, for the so-called Christian realm is beyond question doomed.
If I commanded two battalions of U. S. Marines and a battery of field artillery, I could take the Holy City. I cannot imagine that the Imperials will not strike and crush the rebellion that has convulsed the Empire for half a decade. Hopes for the birth of a new order in China have been brutally dispelled by the fratricidal lunacy of the Taipings. Wherever salvation may come to a nation groaning under corrupt and oppressive Manchu rule, it will not come from the Taipings.
“So much for my hopes of revenging my father through the Taipings,” David interjected glumly. “The only hope now is to change the Dynasty from within. Maybe it can still be reformed, though it can’t be overthrown.”
David and I are still confined “for our own protection” as the strife rises and ebbs [Gabriel continued]. It would be extremely hazardous to attempt to return to Shanghai just yet. However, our friend, the senior official, has promised to convey this copy of our journal to Saul Haleevie.
When we shall ourselves win through to freedom we cannot say. We are, however, determined to leave behind the agonies of Taipingdom as soon as we possibly can. If necessary, we shall escape from our lax w
arders and make our way secretly to Shanghai. Whatever our previous castigation of foreign overlordship, the Foreign Settlement is a haven of peace, justice, and reason in a nation afflicted by cruel and virulent excesses, which are virtually indistinguishable from mass lunacy.
CHAPTER 33
November 7, 1856
SHANGHAI
Saul Haleevie was jubilant in a dove-gray frock coat set off by a silver brocade cravat pierced with a pearl stick pin. His normal reserve abandoned, he greeted each guest expansively. He had firmly rejected his wife’s suggestion that he wear the white silk robe and the embroidered turban he kept for the synagogue. This was certainly not the occasion to parade the characteristics that made the Haleevies distinct from most of the foreign community.
He was, nonetheless, distinctive in all but dress. He might have been a medieval Jewish patrician welcoming his guests to a villa in Andalusia or a biblical patriarch receiving them in a marquee in the desert. That exotic impression was heightened by the shamiana, the striped canvas marquee that covered the front garden of the house on Szechwan Road. Beneath that canopy, charcoal braziers of beaten brass glowed among the roses against the chill of the early November afternoon.
Standing beside her husband, Sarah Haleevie appeared totally self-possessed in a gold-embroidered kaftan of beige satin clasped by a cloth-of-gold cummerbund. An amethyst-and-diamond necklace gleamed around her throat, and diamond pendants hung from her ear lobes. She was, Saul reflected proudly, hardly the conventional mother of the bride-to-be. She was far too attractive and too vital for a matron. Though she appeared serene, she was also nervous.
“Are we doing the right thing, Saul?” she had asked half an hour earlier. “Are you sure she’s not too young? What do we really know about Mr. Henriques?”
“There’s no doubt about it,” Saul had reassured her. “Lionel will be a good provider, a good husband and a good father. He’s proved his mettle. I couldn’t have brought off the Hong Kong silver loan better myself. Perhaps not as well. It takes not only a Jewish brain but British self-confidence to deal with that Hong Kong crowd.”
Sarah, however, was not concerned with Lionel Henriques’s financial acumen, for Saul had pronounced him sound commercially. She was concerned with Fronah’s happiness, and she confessed to apprehension. Would the girl settle down once married? Could she be happy with a man who was her parents’ choice rather than her own?
Saul had laughed at his wife’s infection by their daughter’s advanced ideas. Since when, he’d asked, did foolish virgins choose their own husbands? Had Fronah, who was notoriously reckless, suddenly been blessed with wisdom greater than her parents’? Just look at her! She was not merely happy but radiant. Once betrothed, she would begin to settle down. Once married, responsibility would curb her flightiness.
Sarah had dabbed at her eyes and smiled. She now stood beside him to welcome the taipans and the consuls who had never previously called at the house on Szechwan Road. Her glance noted with approval that the houseboys were pouring champagne generously while the amahs deftly passed the tidbits Shanghailanders called small chow. The curry-puffs, sausages, and meatballs were, of course, all kosher. Those staples were abundantly augmented with kreplach prepared from Mrs. Weinstein’s recipe; with pirogin, small pastry horns crammed with spiced liver; and with lamb kebabs.
An enormous phoenix carved of ice cradled fifty pounds of Beluga caviar under its glistening breast. Illuminated within by a candle, the sculpture was prevented by some Chinese magic from melting. Though they could not serve the spiny lobsters, the giant shrimp, or the Ningpo oysters that normally graced such gala receptions, the Haleevies would not be outdone in either hospitality or ostentation.
That abundance celebrated Fronah’s maturity—as demonstrated by her betrothal. The House of Haleevie and Lee had also come of age—as attested by the glittering guest list. Every senior merchant and consul was present, as well as the foreign commissioners of the Chinese Maritime Customs and the senior military officers of the treaty port. The Intendant of Shanghai was resplendent in orange, while the particolored robes of his chief subordinates shimmered around him.
The Chinese stood apart, bemused by the barbarian rite at which women in draped and flounced frocks chatted shamelessly with strange men. Sleek in silk long-gowns topped with blue jackets, Saul’s most valued customers joked with the invaluable compradors. Those pidgin-speaking Chinese were the essential link between the two disparate communities that dwelt uneasily together beside the muddy Hwangpoo for mutual profit.
Saul was not disturbed by the separation of the two races or his coreligionists’ tendency to cluster apart. Miriam Elias was chatting with Rebecca Benjamin, while their husbands conversed with Karl Weinstein. The Jews’ clothing also set them apart. Only three men wore suits, the rest Baghdad robes. Except for Mrs. Weinstein’s plum satin creation, the ladies were all in kaftans.
The chief social link among the three communities was Saul Haleevie’s adopted son. Aaron chatted briefly with all the guests, not to attempt the impossible by drawing them together, but simply to demonstrate their hosts’ pleasure at their presence. David should be performing the same duty, Saul recalled censoriously. Then he grimaced wryly. Where was David now?
“If only David could be here,” Sarah said softly. “David and that nice American.”
“You didn’t always think that American was nice, Sarah.” Saul was sometimes still startled by her intuitive perception of his thoughts.
“Well, he is. That worry is over now with Fronah betrothed. I only hope Gabriel’s looking after David wherever they are. You must have some idea, Saul.”
“I know you think I’m very clever, but I’m not that clever. I don’t know, just as I didn’t know they were going into any danger in Nanking. You saw the journal my Low Dah, the champion smuggler, brought. You know as much as I do.”
“Saul, that was weeks ago. And the Taipings are still killing each other. If we only knew!”
“We’ll only know, my dear, when they come through the gate. But that Taiping fellow, the one Gabriel calls the senior official, he’ll look after them.”
“I’ve prayed, Saul. At least Fronah looks happy. Just as you said, radiant.”
Fronah hung on Lionel Henriques’s arm among the chief men of the settlement. Her oval face was framed by a frill of mauve silk, which circled her neck and dipped to a vee over her bosom. The reception gown, as the tailor proudly called it, having culled the grandiloquent name, as well as the pattern, from The Lady’s Gazette of Fashion, was as elaborate as any robe de soir. The skirt of white silk pleated horizontally was revealed by a mauve overdress looped open in front and falling in a brief train. Dutifully admiring that creation, Saul had remarked that he would be delighted when her husband paid for her clothes.
Fronah was first annoyed and then pensive when that jest pierced her excitement. Once married, she told herself, she would no longer be subject to the will of her occasionally stern but normally indulgent parents. Nor would she, a cold voice reminded her, enjoy their protection. Though she could, naturally, still appeal to their generosity, she would have to adapt herself to a certain extent to Lionel’s wishes. She would still be somewhat dependent. But not too dependent, she vehemently promised herself.
Those misgivings forgotten, Fronah looked up adoringly at Lionel Henriques. Content for the moment to clasp his arm in the self-effacement considered properly feminine, she did not join the men’s discussion of the topic of the hour: the clashes between the British and the stubborn Imperial Viceroy in Canton, the southern port where foreigners’ freedom was still severely restricted despite the treaties. It had already come to fighting in Canton, British gunboats against Chinese spears and muskets. Since those clashes could provoke a new war against the Manchus, the leaders of the Foreign Settlement were eager for firsthand reports. Since Lionel Henriques had disembarked from Hong Kong just five days earlier and had been in Canton when the incident erupted, they pressed him for his news
and his views.
Fronah was equally concerned, but the golden haze that suffused the afternoon diverted her skittish thoughts. Lionel’s assured authority distinguished him even among the most distinguished men of Shanghai. His slender height was set off by the fawn morning coat he wore over a shawl-collared waistcoat. The ruffles protruding from his turned-back coat cuffs sparkled white, as did his stiff shirt front and his high stock encircled by a voluminous yellow bow tie. The sunlight shining through the shamiana was a golden patina on his blond hair, his arched nose, and his firm mouth.
“I assure you, sir, the disturbances will soon be under control,” Lionel declared confidently to the American consul. “I sensed that from the beginning.”
“You actually saw it begin, did you, Mr. Henriques?”
“By chance, sir. October 8th, it was, a Wednesday. We were taking breakfast on Jardines’ terrace when we saw a commotion on the river. Two Chinese craft drew down on the lorcha Arrow, each carrying a fat Mandarin sitting under a big umbrella and perhaps thirty Chinese soldiers.”
“Lorcha?” asked a Royal Navy commander who was new to China. “What kind of vessel might that be?”
“It’s an old Portuguese term, Commander.” Lionel gladly shared his superior knowledge. “A hybrid with Chinese sails and a European hull, something between a proper ship and a junk. The Arrow is British, Hong Kong registered, though she’s owned by a Chinaman with some outlandish name like Pong or Fong.”
“What actually happened, Mr. Henriques?” The American consul was anxious to supplement fragmentary official reports. “We’re all eager to hear.”
“The Chinese ran down the Blue Peter and the Union Jack, though it’s hard to credit. Her captain was ashore, a young chap called Thomas Kennedy from Belfast. When he reached the Arrow he found the Mandarins in occupation and his Chinese crew already transferred with their wrists bound to the Mandarins’ boats. One old crewman, by the way, was trussed like a pig.”
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